


worth all the gold in the world

by hooksandheroics



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Adoption, Christmas, F/M, Family Feels, Fluff, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 05:39:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16867144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hooksandheroics/pseuds/hooksandheroics
Summary: He has more family than he could ever wish for. And it's good. This is a good life.





	worth all the gold in the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyfriday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/gifts).



> who's up for some family holiday fluff? i know i am. 
> 
> this is mainly for tara because i love her and she deserves a little break from the chaos. but it's also for all you guys who want an escape from drama.

For the first time in over ten hours, Scott Moir gets to sit down.

The great Canadian skies are tinted orange by the time he finds an unoccupied cot to the side of the huge front lawn, and when his butt hits the seat, the feeling could rival standing on that podium in Korea with a gold medal around his neck in 2018.

(He wouldn’t ever tell anyone that.)

But yes. His aching knees and back thank him profusely as he lets himself sink into the void or relaxation.

Any Moir family gathering ranging from a simple housewarming to the grand holidays, anyone can expect chaos. God knows he’s spent almost half of his life creating the chaos. Maybe this is the universe’s revenge on him – getting tagged to babysit his nieces and nephews, manning the kitchen, filling the pitcher of drinks, lifting the heavy gifts. The tree arrived at around noon, just as the snow stopped falling, and he and his brothers took it as their personal mission to make sure the tree is done before the rest of their family arrive.

And then the front lawn needed shoveling.

The vegetables needed chopping.

His momma needed… something.

By the time the relatives are spilling into the lawn, he’s about halfway through the energy he usually still has full. And then Tessa arrives.

If he said his heart didn’t stop the moment she walked in in her emerald green dress under a dark peacoat, with her hair cascading down her shoulders, clutching a small pot of casserole, he would be the biggest liar.

He knows that the casserole is a fluke because he made that a couple days ago before leaving early, but he lets her bring it as if she made it. He also knows that she wore that dress because he can’t stop talking about it.

He can’t stop thinking about her.

Ever since yesterday when he left, he can’t stop. And it’s like he’s falling in love all over again with no apparent reason at all. It’s unnerving, it’s weird, and it’s so _good_.

Way too much eggnog and exhaustion made him completely unguarded that when a blur of red and green the size of a five-year old jumps onto him, he lets out the biggest wheeze.

“Daddy!” this lump of a child cries as it buries itself into his neck.

Scott, always a sucker for his son, laughs and adjusts so that he isn’t so squished between the frame of the cot and his body. This has the boy sitting on his chest with his tiny hands planted just below his windpipe, enough to make it hard to breathe but – well.

Gavin smiles so huge that it makes all his exhaustion melt away, and when his brothers used to tell him about their children literally taking away all the tiredness from their bones, he couldn’t wait to feel that way.

This, it’s better than he imagined.

“What did daddy tell you about jumping on him, young man?” he asks, trying for stern and barely even hitting it with how cracked his voice is from the day’s events.

Gavin, his huge blue eyes sparkling in the sunset’s last light, makes his crushed ribs worth it. His hair started curling a few months ago, dark and rich, and he’s gaining color in his cheeks. He started sleeping in his own room too just a couple weeks ago, and he even suggested they go see a movie.

He didn’t understand much of the plot, but to hear his boy laugh like he’s never heard before…

 _This is good,_ Scott reminds himself. _This is healthy_.

“Daddy, I want punch,” he says, turning those puppy eyes at him like he wouldn’t already give him the world if he so wishes. Gavin might have discovered this little power of his when he asked for chocolate before bed and Scott snuck him some even after he brushed his teeth. From then on, Scott would try to be the stern parent and spectacularly fail.

So, he sits up and hoists the boy in his arms as they make it to the kitchen through the backdoor, knowing that this is his third cup of punch and any more would just result in a sugar rush.

“Where’s mommy?” Scott asks as he pushes the door with his hip. The smell of garlic and onion rush to his brain and makes his mouth water, and he sees Cara by the counter, measuring ingredients. He can’t wait to have that famous Moir roasted chicken, but for now, just punch.

“With _your_ mommy,” Gavin replies, and Scott smiles.

He leans in to whisper at his tiny little ear. “You can call my mommy ‘grandma’, okay? She won’t get mad. In fact, she’ll love it.”

He sits the five-year old on the clean part of the countertop and grins. “All of these people are family,” he tells the child as he fills two cups with punch from the bowl.

“Even uncle Danny?”

“Yeah, even uncle Danny.”

This is something that they’d discovered pretty quickly, Scott remembers. Gavin makes a face whenever he’s thinking, and it’s about the most adorable thing he’s ever seen. He’s making the face right now and Scott can’t help but laugh a little.

“Uncle Danny put something in your stocking,” he tells Scott and – oh. The smile quickly disappears from his face, replaced with suspicion.

He must have seen Danny do it. Danny must have given him something to keep him this silent for this long and – oh he’s going to regret it.

“What did uncle Danny put in my stocking, little pea?”

To his surprise, Gavin pulls out a hundred-dollar bill from the breast pocket of the little sweater his grandma Carol knitted for him. “He gave me this and told me to not tell you.”

“Oh that little – man.”

“But daddy, he’s not little.” Gavin giggles.

Scott shakes his head and gives him his cup. “No, he’s not, baby. But I’ll find out what he put in my stocking before we pull it out because daddy might get something embarrassing and we don’t want to embarrass daddy now, do we?”

Gavin makes his thinking face. “But a hundred-dollars can buy _so much_ candy.”

And if there’s one thing that Scott hates about his brother is that he is _so good_ at bribing. If he teaches Gavin all his crooked ways, there’s going to be one less Moir in every family gathering in the future.

Scott sighs. “Okay, baby. Find grandma. I’ll deal with this.”

The boy raises his arms to be set down on the floor, but just as Scott lets go, he holds on tighter. His little arms around his daddy’s neck, elbows locked, and so _tight_ that Scott almost cries. Gavin used to never want to be touched at all.

“I love you, daddy. Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad,” he tells him. “And I love you more.” Gavin pulls away, tiny curls flopping on his forehead with that kid-grime that Scott tries his hardest to wipe away.

The child waddles out from the kitchen, holding his cup with two hands just like his mommy would tell him, and sets out to find his grandma.

It’s way too many emotions and it’s running on an empty stomach that makes him jump when a pair of arms snake around his waist and a warm body presses against him from the back but – he knows who it is.

“Having fun, daddy?” Tessa giggles into the back of his neck, and god she’s such a sweet thing that even only her breath makes his heart beat faster.

“I just want this day to end,” he mumbles as he turns his face just a little bit to kiss her temple.

She laughs. “No, you don’t. You still have to see Gavin open his gifts. You don’t wanna miss that.”

He laughs too. “Yeah, you’re right.” He turns around in her arms and for the first time that day, he gets to see her up close. She seems to be doing the same, eyes straying to his lips and then to his eyes.

He leans in and kisses her, softly, in awe, with all the love that he’s feeling. His arms pull her closer into him, his skin soaking in the warmth that she brings with her and her smile. When they pull away, the red in her cheeks is the best thing he’s ever gotten yet. Danny’s coal be damned.

He hums. “You taste like apples,” he breathes against her smiling lips.

“And you taste like snow,” she replies, burrowing against his chest. “You must be tired, let’s sit?”

She goes to disentangle their arms, but he refuses to budge. “Just for another minute, please.”

“Okay.”

And he leans against the edge of the counter as he receives her weight with comfort and ease.

Scott remembers a little over a year ago when Tessa told him about this. It’s been a whirlwind of a couple years since the Olympics, she just wants to settle down. She’s still got her endorsements, their skating, their numerous guestings. _But_ , she told Scott. _I want to start a family_. When she voiced this out in the middle of their Montreal flat one hazy afternoon, his heart stopped.

He positively died.

This – the realization of his dreams right in front of his eyes, nothing can ever compare to that feeling.

And then there’s the orphanage, and the moment they walked in, the kind lady was already talking their ears off about this one kid who loves hockey, and this one who loves skating. Scott, nervous and hopeful, told the lady that he just wants to give a kid a home.

“Somewhere stable. Somewhere they’re never going to worry about anything anymore,” he told Amanda.

She got this look in her eyes, something soft and warm, and then she said she had this one kid that she wanted them to meet.

And Gavin was just four years old when they met him. He sat in a tiny table off to the corner of the classroom, alone, with a tiny sketchpad in front of him. He moved like he was encased in a small box, and he looked at them with his huge blue eyes like they’re there to take his sketchpad.

“His parents were killed in an accident,” Amanda had told them before entering the room. “His immediate family didn’t want him, so they left him a couple blocks from the orphanage hoping he’d find his way here. If it weren’t for one of our staff taking a stroll, he wouldn’t have been found.”

Scott’s heart must have broken a million times over. Tessa squeezed his hand so hard that he just knew she was trying not to let the emotions spill over. “That’s… I can’t imagine the pain,” he heard Tess say. He squeezed her hand back.

At that moment, Scott knew he would give anything in the world just to give this boy the happiness that he deserves.

He wants to think he’s starting to see slivers of it in his eyes, a little brighter every day. He starts counting milestones the way new parents would count their children’s firsts.

The first time Gavin asked for Tess to make him his favorite breakfast.

The first time Gavin let them hug him.

The first time Gavin attends a Moir family gathering.

The first time Gavin told him that he loved him.

The first time he called him his “daddy” and Tess his “mommy”.

Just this afternoon, when he found his little boy nestled between his older nieces, reading a book about a little blue bird, his heart threatened to swell and consume him whole.

He didn’t know it was possible to feel this much love for a boy that’s not even his own blood. But seeing Gavin in Tessa’s arms, dozing off and very much ready to be tucked in, seeing his walls come down with every secret that he lets them know, seeing just the way he’d run around the yard with his new friends and cousins, and even uncles and aunties, squealing with laughter and falling over on the snow – there’s no better feeling.

And it may not have been as smooth sailing as he’d hoped it would be, having Tessa by his side made it all the more worth it.

She’d been an amazing mother. He really couldn’t ask for a better partner.

“Hey,” she breathes, still in his embrace. “It’s Gavin’s first Christmas with the Moirs. He has more family than he could ever wish for. This is good.”

“It’s good,” he replies, trying to stall the tears from falling.

It is good.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! leave a comment or a kudos, and let me know what you think. i'm also on tumblr and twitter (@hooksandheroics)


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